AL Prison Guards Fired For Beating Handcuffed and Kneeling Prisoner

One extra-legal jail beating has left two Alabama prison guards fired and one resigned.

The beating happened in front of two other male corrections officers at the Elmore Correctional Facility – one a supervisor – and was recorded in December 2014.

Sergeant Cole, the female Alabama corrections officer caught in the shocking video below, beat a handcuffed prisoner only a split second after he showed docile obedience to her command to get on his knees.

The female Alabama jailer identified by Al.com as Sergeant. J. Cole in the video, brought her charge into the room which was recorded without audio, and within 30 seconds he compliantly got on his knees.

That’s when Cole attacked the prisoner taking him to the floor with a series of open handed blows delivered with her full body weight.

The rest of the video shows the poor prisoner curled into the fetal position on the floor.

The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The Alabama State Personnel Board upheld Cooper’s firing in a ruling today after his attorney argued for a lesser punishment.

The other corrections officer in the room resigned in lieu of being fired.

While we don’t have full details of the prisoner’s crime, nor his offense at that moment, it is sufficient to say that no court would order a grown man to be beaten while in a submissive pose and handcuffed.

Both Cooper and the other corrections officer acted as if nothing at all had happened, one looking around his monitor, then continuing to work on his computer and the other officer passively watching the whole scene.

A few seconds after the beating, Sgt. Cole left the room as if pacing, she then returned waving her hands in the air and then assaulted the prisoner again, scaring the compliant prisoner by simulating another beating.

While there’s no audio, it appears that the Alabama corrections officer continued speaking vividly to the prisoner who stayed curled in a fetal position after the takedown.

Sgt. Cole then removed her jacket and appears to be pleading her case to Cooper and the other Alabama corrections officer who a minute later left their chairs and attended to the fallen prisoner.

After the Supervisor, Lt. Cooper helped the beaten man to his feet, the prisoner stood with his head hung as the other guard who witnessed the beating returned with a fourth guard.

Again, while there is no audio, it does appear as if Sgt. Cole, who assaulted the handcuffed man, continued to speak to him forcefully in the presence of the other officers.

The prisoner continued to keep his head hung in obvious shame for the rest of the video, evidencing the effect of the cruel method of discipline employed by Sgt. Cole, and his uncertainty how to comply with the correctional officers’ orders.

For the rest of the video the man also appears to be in obvious pain gritting his teeth, while standing with his back bent, handcuffed and speaking with the supervisor Lt. Cooper who sat idly by while he was beaten up.

At PINAC News we see a lot of mainstream media outlets whose diligence is less than perfect in protecting the rights of prisoners, the accused and sometimes the public at large. Give a lot of credit to Al.com for reporting diligently and serially on these cases in Elmore, Alabama.

Maybe this will help finally change the rotten culture in Alabama’s Elmore Correctional Facility, and show that law enforcement officers who break the law, can actually be fired not just for abusing citizens’ civil rights, but also for failing to report officers who break their oaths to defend the Constitution.